44 Minutes – Edinburgh Fringe 2026. – Theatre, Art and Film Reviews

As we enter the Front Room Assembly, the stage is already set. A clock on the wall reads 44 minutes, and a cage dominates the room. The tension begins before a word is spoken.

Four strangers are trapped inside a cage. They soon discover they have been thrown into a disturbing psychological experiment. A disembodied voice announces that they have the option to become the new disciples: three will be allowed to leave, while the fourth, chosen by the group, will be left to die. They have 44 minutes to decide who lives and who dies, and the big clock above the cage starts ticking.

Three remember the moment they were taken. Three know who they are: John Billingsley’s gentle, soft‑spoken storekeeper; Dorian Missick’s hardened ex‑cop; and Matthew Petrick’s earnest student. The fourth, played by Christopher Ryan, wakes in a fog, stripped of memory, identity, even his own name. His confusion hangs is palpable.

As the clock ticks down, suspicions arise. Fear sharpens every gesture, every glance. The cast are uniformly superb, carving out four distinct personas whose arguments bounce between self‑preservation and desperation. The cage becomes a tinderbox; alliances flare and collapse, voices rise and break, and attention increasingly narrows on the nameless stranger. Is he a victim, a threat, or something far more unsettling?

What begins as a moral puzzle deepens into something darker, forcing the audience to question morality, survival, and the nature of good and evil. Gripping, claustrophobic, and brilliantly acted, 44 Minutes is a thought-provoking thriller that keeps you questioning right up to the final moments.

Ultimately, 44 minutes succeed because it leaves its most disturbing questions with the audience. Its claustrophobic setting, escalating tension, and committed performances make the countdown feel agonisingly real, while the final revelations cast everything that came before in a new and unsettling light.

Rather than offering easy answers, Steinberg and DeFillipis leave us wondering if the line between victim and monster can ever remain clear.

Reviewed by Nina Gardner

Five Stars

Playing at; – Assembly @ St Andrew Square – Front Room until 30 August

Tickets and further information can be found following the link below

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/44-minutes

Creatives

Writer Lev Steinberg

Director Michael DeFilippis

Producers Michael R. Blaha, Nigel Miles-Thomas

Cast

John Billingsley Storekeeper;